Editing Gap junction (section)

===Electrical and chemical synapses===
Because of the widespread occurrence of gap junctions in cell types other than nerve cells, the term ''gap junction'' became more generally used than terms such as electrical synapse or nexus. Another dimension in the relationship between nerve cells and gap junctions was revealed by studying chemical synapse formation and gap junction presence. By tracing nerve development in leeches with gap junction expression suppressed it was shown that the bidirectional gap junction (electrical nerve synapse) needs to form between two cells before they can grow to form a unidirectional ''chemical nerve synapse''.<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Todd KL, Kristan WB, French KA |title=Gap junction expression is required for normal chemical synapse formation |journal=J. Neurosci. |volume=30 |issue=45 |pages=15277–85 |date=November 2010 |pmid=21068332 |pmc=3478946 |doi=10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2331-10.2010 }}</ref> The chemical nerve synapse is the synapse most often truncated to the more ambiguous term ''nerve synapse''.